


Rental Cars

by Castillon02



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Cars, Crack, Fluff, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:13:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25474435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Castillon02/pseuds/Castillon02
Summary: Bond gets sent on an undercover mission: he has to work as an associate at Big Hal's Rental Service.
Relationships: James Bond/Q
Comments: 27
Kudos: 103
Collections: 007 Fest Fancreations





	Rental Cars

**Author's Note:**

> Written for 007 Fest 2020. 
> 
> Anon prompt: Reverse of Bond's Colbert sketch: Bond works at a car place and he's constantly snarking at people who rent cars from him.

“You want me to go undercover at his car rental place,” Bond repeated. “And Don Marconi won’t be suspicious that his old clerk left?”

“They frequently quit,” M said. “Something about the manager.”

“And they frequently get replaced by muscle-bound assassins?” Bond asked.

M’s mouth curved up with blatant amusement, now. “Don Marconi is nearsighted and hates wearing glasses. I’m told he won’t suspect anything.”

“How convenient,” Bond said sourly.

This had to be Q’s doing. The timing was too perfect: Bond had ruined the Aston Martin that Q had so lovingly restored, and now M was sending him on a mission to be a car caretaker. It looked to be the most boring surveillance mission in existence, too, keeping tabs on an octogenarian criminal whose nephew, Timothy Wilbur, happened to be a British terrorist. As far as recon could tell, these days Don Marconi mostly used his mob boss cred to keep his driver’s license. The last time he’d probably killed someone had been over a decade ago.

The possible but pathetically small likelihood of Don Marconi doing anything interesting that connected back to his terrorist nephew was likely why M had agreed to the assignment. M was a big believer in the power of boredom to induce penitence.

Q, on the other hand, was apparently a big believer in the power of abstinence to induce penitence. Not only was Bond going to be on the other side of the ocean from him, but there was literally no one worth seducing for information on this mission.

“Enjoy New Jersey. I’ll see you in three weeks, 007,” M said, by way of goodbye. “Or perhaps three months; you never know when further intelligence may be needed.”

In other words, if he complained, M would extend the assignment.

“Of course, M,” Bond said in his most pleasantly hateful voice, and left before he could do something he regretted.

\---

“Your equipment, 007,” Q said, handing it to him.

Bond opened the box. A scratched up old iPhone Six filled the space where his Walther should have been. Bond was pretty sure it was one from Q’s stash in the kitchen, which for some reason had a drawer dedicated to outmoded devices. Underneath the mobile, five coiled black wires stared up at him like eyes.

“Where’s my bloody gun?” Bond asked.

“Your mission is infiltration and observation only, 007,” Q said. “These charging cables will plug into various mobile devices and allow Q Branch to gain access to their contents. We may also gain access to their contacts’ devices, providing our virus transmits as it should. You should be able to observe some of the stolen data through your own issued mobile.”

Bond glanced from Q to the cables and back again. “Will those at least work as garottes?”

Q shrugged. “I’m not sure, and for some reason we don’t have the budget to run tests. Here are your tickets, by the way. Economy class.” For the first time, Q allowed his no doubt valiant attempt at neutral professionalism to slide, favoring Bond with a sarcastic smile. “There will be a few layovers, I’m afraid. Have a good flight, 007.”

“Q.”

“And I’ll see you at home when you get back,” Q said softly. He gripped Bond’s hand in his before turning back to his laptop.

Bond took a deep breath and left.

All right, he might have wrecked the Aston accidentally-on-purpose. Maybe. Just to see what Q would do, now that they were in a relationship. Just because Bond was going to fuck up big time at some point, inevitably, because he always did, so he might as well get it over with.

Just to see if Q would end things, maybe, because Bond never got to keep the good things in his life, so he might as well get rid of them now, before they could slip even deeper under his skin and hurt even more when they got ripped away.

Only instead of dumping him, Q had conspired to ship him overseas to a humiliating customer service job, putting him in the MI6 equivalent of the No-No Corner.

Dread at his future boredom sat low in Bond’s belly, but a flicker of hope kindled in his chest, too. He hadn’t counted on Q refusing to let their relationship die like the Aston Martin had.

\---

“Big Hal’s Rental Service, we do big rentals, small prices,” Bond said into the telephone, using the same pleasantly hateful voice he had with M. “Yes, we do have a Lamborghini. No, you may not ‘take it for a test drive.’ Yes, the same applies to all vehicles. However, I will point out that at Big Hal’s Rental Service, you are allowed to _rent_ these vehicles and take them for as many drives as you please.” He listened to the customer’s counter-offer. “No...no, I’m afraid that we are a for-profit business, and as such we accept money in exchange for goods and services. I cannot be bribed with ‘a nice bucket of fried chicken.’ And a good day to you and your mother as well.”

Bond clicked the ridiculous, corded landline phone back into its archaic cradle. The phone looked like it could very well have been in use since Big Hal and Don Marconi had opened the place in the nineties in order to do their money laundering.

“Rookie mistake, Mike,” Big Hal said, leaning over Bond’s shoulder. He was a tall, greasy man who consistently wore ties that Bond wanted to set on fire. “Shoulda had ’em bring the chicken over, we coulda split it for lunch. And then you coulda upsold them. They’re already a bucket of chicken deep, might as well rent a car to go with it.”

Bond fought the urge to judo throw Hal over the rental counter. “That’s stupid,” he pointed out.

Big Hal chuckled. “That’s customers,” he said. The thick smell of his cologne was giving Bond a headache. “Tell you what,” he clapped a hand on Bond’s shoulder, “I’ll take over the counter and you go do some cleanup.”

Bond nodded. They’d had five returns today and he’d been shown where to find the vacuum.

\---

One of the returned cars smelled like literal shit; Bond discovered a used nappy in the glove compartment. His headache worsened and his determination to never pollute the world with offspring increased. After dumping the foul thing, he rolled down the car’s windows, put an entire tray of odor absorber into the passenger seat, and hoped for the best.

Another car had Taco Bell wrappers, lettuce, and cheese littering the floor. Americans really would eat anything. Bond disposed of the rubbish with extreme prejudice and made a mental note to try to find some actual Mexican food now that he was on the same continent as the country in question. The only ‘Mexican’ restaurants in London were all Spanish food places who thought that adding some sour cream and tortillas to their dishes would be a good enough disguise, an action that managed to disgust Bond both as a foodie _and_ as a spy.

Anyway. Maybe the next cars wouldn’t be atrocious?

...Incredibly, the last three vehicles, in addition to having clearly defiled backseats, all featured used condoms tucked neatly into the ashtray. Apparently, leaving cum-filled prophylactics in a rental was perfectly acceptable behavior so long as they weren’t draped over the upholstery. Berks.

(Bond thought guiltily of the condoms he had occasionally shoved into the bottom of the Aston’s emptied champagne box. Out of sight, out of mind… But there had definitely been a boffin who’d had to dispose of his honeypot leavings. Oops. Hopefully not Q himself…)

\---

The manual labor of cleaning dirty rentals was tedious. Big Hal was a creep who watched porn at work. Don Marconi came in and said offensive things about the ‘good old days.’ Bond frequently had to endure customer interactions that would baffle any sane mind and battle messes that would offend any sane nose. His fingers itched for a trigger to pull.

To add insult to injury, most of the cars weren’t even very good. Big Hal’s Rental Service had the usual American mixture of sedans, SUVs, trucks, and tawdry sports cars. Cheap to mid-grade rubbish.

However, there were four shining lights of vehicular stardom in the collection: a gleaming silver Lexus LC, a sleek white Lamborghini Huracan, a deep blue Audi R8, and a black, beautifully preserved 1930 Blower Bentley. Bond’s first good car had been an old Bentley; he’d done much of the restoration work himself, and nostalgia panged through him.

It was an otherwise terrible assignment, but Bond loved getting to walk past those four beauties every day.

\---

“Big Hal’s Rental Service, we do big rentals, small prices,” Bond said into the telephone.

“Hello, Mr. Rotch,” Q’s cheerful voice said in his ear.

Was he being recalled? Had Don Marconi’s terrorist nephew been spotted?

“I’m just calling to inquire what Big Hal’s policy is on renting vehicles to people when they destroyed the last one he gave them,” Q said, a laugh in his voice. “It says on the website--”

Bond hung up.

Little shite.

(He ignored the fact that he was smiling, really smiling, for the first time all week.)

\---

The customer desk offered Bond plenty of time to practice manipulating people when he got bored, usually by figuring out how to get the customer to upgrade. (Or to downgrade, if Big Hal or Don Marconi had been particularly odious.)

Some customers were more entertaining than others, however.

“But I need that car now!” The young man, Mr. Charles Wastlethwaite, ‘call me Chad,’ all but stomped his foot. He had a haircut that Felix would have called ‘douchey,’ a gaudy fraternity ring on his index finger, and a suit that had likely fit him a few months ago but now hung off of his artificially tanned frame.

Unless Bond missed his guess, Chad was only renting a vehicle in order to take a load of cash somewhere unsavory. Cash or drugs, from the way he was gripping his briefcase so tightly. Probably cash from dealing drugs; stress or dipping into his own wares would account for the new fit of the suit. Probably opioids and stimulants for his university friends.

Probably the Porsche that dear old daddy had bought him wouldn’t do in the sort of neighborhood you took your drug payments to. And probably Chad was on a deadline, mixed up with people who would do much more than dock his grade if he were tardy. Oh dear, oh dear.

“I’m _so_ sorry,” Bond said, “but it appears you have an unsafe driving record.”

“I do not!” Chad protested.

“Approximately thirty-five months ago you were ticketed with a DUI,” Bond corrected him, having run his license. “I’m afraid that Hal’s policy is not to rent to people who are at risk of driving under the influence of alcohol. It’s very unsafe.” Bond kept his tone even.

“But I--” Chad paused. Looked at him. Swallowed. Took out his wallet. “Look. How much?” he asked, low, his face flushed.

“I’ll have your phone,” Bond said, cheerfully hitting where it would hurt someone from Gen Z the most.

“You’ll _what_?”

“Your phone,” Bond repeated. “As collateral. Safe return of the car, safe return of your mobile. Everyone’s happy.” He smiled.

“I--” The young man’s hand went to his pocket. “I need the GPS.”

“We have many vehicles with onboard GPS for you to choose from,” Bond informed him. “In fact, I have a particular one in mind.” He typed in the identifying information for what Big Hal referred to as the Diaper-mobile, which still smelled hideous. Then he made a show of peering at the clock on his computer monitor. “What time did you say your meeting was?”

“Fuck, okay, take it!” The young man threw his hideously expensive mobile on the counter. “Where do I sign?”

“Let me just print that out for you,” Bond said, sliding the mobile onto his side of the desk. He fired up the dot matrix printer.

They waited.

“This will take a few moments,” Bond said, needlessly, while the machine behind him beeped and clicked and did its grim, slow work. He had ‘accidentally’ told the machine to print ten copies of the required documents. If he were lucky and the young man were particularly inattentive, he could probably get all ten copies signed and initialled.

If he were exceptionally lucky, the Diaper-mobile would be stolen and chopped for parts while Chadwas out of the vehicle and making his delivery.

After Chad left, Big Hal poked his head out from his porn room. “Nice one,” he said. “I’ll tell Little Jerry to chop the car while it’s out so we can get the insurance payout. I’m sick of smelling that shit.”

Sometimes, when you worked with criminals, luck wasn’t required.

When Big Hal wasn’t looking, Bond plugged Charles ‘Chad’ Wastlethwaite’s mobile into one of his Q Branch-issue chargers. If Q’s virus did all he’d said it could, then it might be useful to see what wealthy old Papa Wastlethwaite was up to. An apple like that? Bond’s gut said it was worth investigating the whole family tree.

\---

“Big Hal’s Rental Service, we do big rentals, small prices,” Bond said into the telephone.

“Are cars the only thing you rent?” Moneypenny asked. “Because there are other big things that I might like for a small price.”

“We also offer SUVs and pick-up trucks in various sizes,” Bond said, trying to keep a straight face.

“Sure that’s not a code for anything?” Moneypenny’s grin was obvious in her voice. “You don’t offer pick-up fucks instead?”

“Even if we did, we don’t have anything for pennies,” Bond retorted and cut off the call.

\---

Big Hal didn’t do checks on Don Marconi’s driving history, of course, and it was Don Marconi who sideswiped a young couple in a Ford Fiesta while driving the beautiful silver Lexus.

“Damn morons,” the old man grumbled to Big Hal while Bond minded the front desk and eavesdropped. “They said their goddamn GPS malfunctioned. And it took five whole minutes for those idiots to register that I was threatening them! Kids today. No respect. They took off when I showed them my photobook, though. Timmy digitized it for me last Christmas, put it on my mobile. He said it was a hoot; I knew I liked him.”

Timmy, aka Timothy Wilbur, responsible for killing nine people in various politically-motivated attacks, aka the whole reason Bond was here in the first place.

The family that slays together, stays together, apparently.

\---

A few days later, Marconi took out the Audi R8. It came back with the help of a tow truck.

Marconi himself was fine. “I swear to god, my light was green!” he told Big Hal. “How the fuck can there be two green lights at the same time?”

“Technology these days,” Big Hal tutted, giving Marconi a matronly look while Marconi wasn’t looking. “It giveth and it taketh away.”

Indeed. Particularly if it had a certain letter of the alphabet helping it along.

Bond looked at the poor Audi, its right side crumpled in, its deep blue coat scraped with an inferior automobile’s tacky red paint. He looked at the Lexus, only mildly scraped, but still not repaired. And then he looked at the undamaged Lamborghini and Bentley, both of them innocently haloed by small floodlights that Marconi had made Big Hal set up in the garage in order to highlight his collection.

Had Q meddled with the first two cars? Would he destroy the last two, ruining a pair of beautiful, brilliant machines for the sake of vengeance? Could Bond be with someone who could go that far?

The hypocrisy of his last thought struck him. Fuck. Was this how Q had felt about the Aston?

This mission really needed to end.

“Didn’t you say Timmy was good at technology?” Bond asked as innocently as possible. “Maybe he’ll know what to make of this.”

“Hmmm, good idea,” Marconi said, snapping his fingers. “I’ll give him a call. He needs to catch up with his Uncle Marc anyway, the little twerp.”

\---

“Big Hal’s Rental Service, we do big rentals, small prices,” Bond said into the telephone.

“Do you have any golf carts?” Tanner asked, undoubtedly a reference to the last time they had golfed together. They didn’t usually get a cart, but Bond had been sporting a stabbed thigh and Tanner had clearly been itching to dare him to perform some very specific vehicular stunts that he may or may not have seen on YouTube.

Bond had picked up the thrown gauntlet and the two of them had very nearly been banned from the course for life before Bond had managed to bargain the manager down to six months.

“Terribly sorry, but in New Jersey it’s illegal to rent golf carts to people who are going bald,” Bond lied. “Try somewhere more local...if they’ll let you in.” He hung up in the middle of Tanner’s indignant laugh.

\---

Timmy turned out to be in town. He was staying with Wastlethwaite Sr.

Bond considered the intel he had pulled from Chad’s phone, and then from Wastlethwaite Sr.’s phone after Q’s virus had done its work. In particular, he considered that the suspiciously deleted emails that Wastlethwaite Sr. had been sending about funding more homeless shelters were probably about funding more criminal ventures against the underclasses instead. Shocking. And apparently this financial venture included donating money to Timothy Wilbur’s terrible terrorist fund.

“Come on, Timbo,” Don Marconi said over the phone. “It’s probably nothing, but if it’s something, you’re the guy to talk to. And hey, we’ll take the Lambo to dinner. My treat.”

Apparently even being in the mob couldn’t save Don Marconi from the indignity of having to bribe a younger relative to spend time with him.

“Yeah, that place on fifth. Uh-huh. Christ, I’ve been driving for over sixty years--what do you mean that’s the point? Fine, you little fucker, I can get Hal to drive the car to your place.”

“Can’t!” Big Hal called from his porn room. “I have a thing!”

“Turn your _thing_ off, Hal!”

“No, I mean, I legit have a chiropractor’s appointment. My back hasn’t been the same since I carried that bod--uh, that thing to the docks last month.”

Safely behind the customer service desk and facing away from the conversation happening behind him, Bond rolled his eyes to the heavens. Maybe when he got back, if he were very good, M would let him investigate criminals with at least one subtle bone in their body.

“Oh yeah,” Marconi said, “you told me about that. You going to Smith’s? He’s real good.”

“Yeah, he made an opening.”

“Hey, Rotch!” Marconi said.

Bond obligingly turned around.

“You ever drive a Lamborghini? Doesn’t matter; you’re about to.”

\---

Wastlethwaite’s house had good, solid colonial bones; it was a shame they had been covered up by McMansion-style expansions.

Bond’s target came out of the house, a leggy man in his thirties dressed mostly in Tommy Hilfiger clothes that he was too old for; they had maybe been borrowed from Chad. He wasn’t packing a gun. Bond could kill Timothy Wilbur and Don Marconi right here and right now, before anyone could muster up so much as a token protest. In fact, Wastlethwaite senior was in the Bahamas, so there was only Chad to worry about.

Instead, Bond obligingly stepped out of the vehicle and passed Timothy Wilbur the keys. “Safe travels,” he said.

“See you in a couple hours,” Don Marconi said, waving him off from the passenger seat. He addressed Timmy with an avuncular smile. “Now, let’s see what she can do, eh?”

Timmy slammed the door in Bond’s face and the car roared down the ridiculously long driveway, leaving Bond all alone in front of a morally bankrupt rich person’s house.

Hmmm. Whatever would he do with his spare time?

\---

Bond wandered with impunity through the mansion, which seemed cluttered all to hell with faddish purchases but empty as a shucked oyster shell when it came to people. If anyone happened to ask, he was here looking for Chad, eager to return Chad’s mobile.

The upper middle floor seemed to be Chad’s, in fact. It had a personal gym, a dusty-looking library, and a bedroom/entertainment room suite lined with _Call of Duty_ posters and fan paintings. (Ah, the glamor of fictional war. Bond rolled his eyes.)

Then a toilet flushed and Chad came out of the nearby bathroom, still tugging his trackies up. His eyes widened. “You!” he said.

“Me,” Bond said, smirking.

“What--”

“I’m investigating your dad for funding terrorism,” Bond said.

To his surprise, Chad paled. “Terrorism?” he asked, one hand over his mouth. “No. No, he just--he just cheats on his taxes and bribes politicians! He’s not that kind of billionaire!”

Bond gave him a pitying look.

“Is he?” Chad asked, quieter.

Bond tilted his head.

“Oh, fuck, he is.”

“Why don’t we double-check,” Bond suggested. “Where’s his office?”

Chad narrowed his eyes. “Am I going to get my phone back after this?”

“If you’re a good boy,” Bond said. “And if I don’t find out that you were involved.”

Chad flushed. “Look, man, I just deal weed and Adderall and shit. I’m not even a business major!”

Bond smiled. “Still undeclared?”

Chad’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah. Guess I don’t need to worry about how he’ll react to those art classes now. You want his office-office, or his secret office that he thinks I don’t know about?”

“Secret office first,” Bond decided. “And then we’ll visit his office-office so you can transfer some money to your accounts before his assets are frozen. You won’t see me again after you inherit, I hope?”

“I don’t need some rental car hitman on my ass, so no,” Chad said.

\---

They uncovered a lot of evidence in the secret office. Chad’s face went pale, and then red with anger, and then pale again. If art didn’t work out for him, he could try getting work as a stoplight.

“Oh, look,” Bond said, reading through the poorly encrypted emails on Wastlethwaite Senior’s PC, “he’s going to stop funding Timothy Wilbur’s terrorist group...”

Chad’s eyes flickered with hope.

“...Because he wants to start funding a different, more ‘results-oriented’ terrorist group,” Bond finished. “He’s ‘really feeling their synergy.’”

Chad slumped. Then he said, “Wait, Timmy’s a terrorist? Really? Fuck, I should have known, he _never_ returns the outfits he borrows.”

They went to the office-office next, and after they finished securing Chad’s financial future, Bond said, “Go play your Zed-Box, and don’t come downstairs until I tell you it’s safe. I’ll give you your phone later.”

Chad scowled. “You have to know it’s an XBox, man. There’s no way,” he said.

Bond raised his eyebrows. “That’s what you want to be skeptical about?”

“It’s a global franchise!” Chad said.

“Yeah, I was fucking with you,” Bond admitted. “Good job.”

Chad’s face lit up from the praise. Then his gaze turned warm and speculative, and he bit his bottom lip suggestively.

Dear God. Bond went downstairs before the XBox infant could attempt something regrettable.

\---

The Lamborghini roared up the drive after about an hour of Bond being forced to listen to the half-muffled, oddly engaging _Call of Duty_ soundtrack. Then car doors slammed closed, keys jingled, and the front door opened.

“I still say it was weird, Timmy, but I guess if your gadgets didn’t pick up on anything, it’s just an old man’s imagination,” Don Marconi grumbled, following Timothy Wilbur in. “ROTCH!” he shouted. “MIKE! GET THE FUCK DOWN HERE, WE’RE GOING HOME.”

Bond waited in his hiding place behind the half-open door of a little-used visiting room.

“Guess he went home, Uncle Marc,” Wilbur said. “Do you want me to drive you back?” The ‘aw, shucks’ tone in his voice was so fake that Bond’s heart rate increased instantly after hearing it.

“Ah, fuck off, I told you, I’ve been driving myself home since before your dad started jerking it,” Don Marconi said.

“If you’re sure…” Wilbur said. Bond could hear his smile.

“Sure as shit,” Marconi said, and then the front door opened and closed again, the car started, its engine purred down the road…

“Fucking idiot,” Wilbur muttered, and a moment later the engine stopped purring, because it was hard for engines to do that when they’d been exploded.

Chad came pounding down the stairs. “What the fuck? Did you blow up that car?”

“Chad?” Wilbur asked. “Oh, fuck. Look, I’ll split Marc’s inheritance with you--”

Meanwhile, several car-accident-related puzzle pieces clicked together in Bond’s mind: no more money from the billionaire; Wilbur was good with technology; Marconi had a tidy nest egg stashed away. Bond burst out of his hiding spot.

“You killed that man!” Chad shouted.

“You killed those _cars_!” Bond said, and he tackled Wilbur to the ground.

\---

Six’s cover-up ops handled things with Chad and Wilbur, who Bond respectively returned the phone of and left only mostly dead. Wilbur would live to suffer like Marconi’s cars had suffered.

For his next move, Bond went back to the rental place, let himself into Hal’s office, and interrupted Hal’s wanking for the last time. Turned out the charging cables did work as garottes. He would have to let Q know.

Finally, Bond went to the garage. Three terrible casualties...three magnificent machines destroyed...but there was still Bond’s secret favorite, the beautiful Blower Bentley. There was no way he could leave the old girl in a place like this.

Except when he went to collect her, the Bentley was gone.

Bond’s stomach dropped.

Stupid. It was just a car. The mission was done--that was the important thing. This was fine. Totally fine. The Bentley would have been finicky anyway. No sense in keeping a fussy old thing like that around.

\---

“I’m old and decrepit and I’m retiring,” Bond announced to Q from his spot on Q’s sofa. He planted his face back into the sofa cushions after he said it. He was already drunk on the disgusting Earl Grey vodka he had found in Q’s freezer, which was the sole alcohol in Q’s house, probably in an attempt to limit just this sort of behavior. It had only made Bond feel spiteful enough to hold his nose and chug it.

Q closed the front door behind him. His keys and anorak clinked onto their respective hooks and his shoes went onto their shoe shelf. Once the putting-away routine was complete, the cats hopped off of Bond’s back and went to greet Q for their own homecoming ritual, the loyal sods. “Retiring?” Q asked. “Tragic.” His voice came from lower to the ground, and Bond knew he was kneeling to scratch behind Jelly’s ears and let Butter headbutt his leg, just like he always did.

The shush-shush sound of Q’s trousers around his legs, the soft padding of Q’s bare foot against the wooden flooring--they felt loud in the quiet room, this room where they had fucked, this room where they had watched telly, this room that Bond had come back to bleeding and bruised and had always been made welcome. This room where he was welcome still. Bond felt Q’s warm, strong presence standing next to him, smelled the tea-metal-oil scent that Q carried with him like a cat on his shoulders.

“The thing is,” Q said, trailing his hand down Bond’s shoulder, “I had a gift for you, but it’s a gift that I can only give active agents, so I suppose I’ll just have to let 009 know...” He trailed off.

Bond lifted his head again. “Fine,” he said. “I un-retire. For now.” So long as M gave him the good missions again.

Q patted his shoulder condescendingly. “Up you get, if your ancient bones can still stand,” he said.

Bond swooped up and threw Q into a fireman’s carry, ignoring his yelping and flailing. “I’ll show you how well I can _stand_ ,” he said, turning his head to leer at Q once Q had resigned himself to the situation.

To Bond’s delight, Q leered back and nearly fell off of Bond’s shoulders trying to grope Bond’s arse. “I missed you,” Q said, holding tight to him. “Do you know how many times my vibrator ran out of batteries while I thought about you? Do you know how often my tea ran cold because you distracted me even while you were across the bloody ocean?”

“I’m sorry about the car,” Bond blurted. He shifted Q so he could wrap his legs around Bond’s waist and his arms around Bond’s back, one of their favorite positions.

Q pressed his forehead against Bond’s. “I know you are,” he said. “I forgive you.” He pulled back a little. “And I’ll do my share of fucking up, you know. You just ran ahead like you usually do.” He cupped his hand around Bond’s head and tugged him close. Not coincidentally, this position also made kissing much easier.

Bond had missed Q’s mouth. He had missed Q’s hands. He had missed Q, just Q, so fucking much.

“Wait, wait,” Q said when they pulled back for air. “Garage first.”

Bond quirked his eyebrows.

“You’ll like this,” Q said. He added thoughtfully, “You know, there would be something terribly poetic about me getting to use you for transportation instead of the other way around.”

Bond laughed and carried him to the garage, trying to ignore the thrum of nerves through his brain as he walked there. _It’s not going to be what you hope it is_ , he told himself. _It’s just not. You aren’t that lucky and you don’t deserve to be that lucky, so just be happy about whatever the fuck Q got you_.

But Bond was that lucky. In Q’s garage, in the same place the old Aston had been parked, there stood the beautiful black 1930 Blower Bentley.

“Some cars are rentals,” Q said, smiling at whatever he could see on Bond’s face. “But I knew as soon as you saw that one that it was going to be for keeps.”

“ _You’re_ for keeps,” Bond said, choked up, and they shagged right in front of Bond’s new old car.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: Bond's car in the first three Bond books was a 1930 Blower Bentley. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! Constructive criticism is welcome <3


End file.
